Guild Wars 2

Just a reminder that if you want aoe poison spike to help stun use whirling axe stolen item.

Warriors are also therefore the most vulnerable to this combo with the lowest initiative investment.

Potential damage and sustain go hand in hand.

Generally, you need to have more sustain if players can also potentially one-shot you. HoT introduced statistics like Maurader, new stronger cleanse, enhanced blocking and evasion abilities, and better healing to compensate for increases in damage potential. The need for more damage arose because people wanted faster kill times in both PvP and PvE.

In PvE the desire came out of trying to make “harder” fights where defense mattered because the creature could kill you without a substantial increase in defensive ability. Damage and CC also increased for similar reasons.

In PvP the goal was to make fights more interesting by speeding them up. People often associate quick kills with fun and skill. The builds that could burst, yet also use the newly buffed defenses properly, became part of the burst-invuln meta where it was possible to have the best of both worlds (massive offense potential and incredible defensive potential).

If Anet nerfs damage AND defenses it will reduce the potential for a build to be both damage burst and defensive juggernauts. That’s why this patch was a first good step in that direction. Trust is low they will keep moving in that direction. It is up to Anet to keep using nerfs to bring everything back towards a balanced trade-off (damage for defense and vis versa).

P/D is better for kiting but requires more timing and care with Shadow Strike.

It sounds like you were generating a lot of boons if boon corruption was that big of an issue. It really sounds like a hard counter issue (boon reliant build vs. and anti-boon build).

The necro must also have been hitting you a lot for those conditions to constantly overwhelm you. You said you had an issue watching your condition bar and the necros “tells” but if you just watched the tells to avoid his skills…you wouldn’t need to watch your condition bar as much.

So it sounded like to me a combination of needing to focus on blocking his skills and being countered by something that should counter you (anti boon beats boon reliant builds).

The issue with shortbow is mainly one of knowledge. Once other players learn not to stand in the field it will go back to being a niche support weapon fairly quickly. Mainly they just need to avoid spamming attacks inside a CG field while moving out of it. Once outside they can spam ranged attacks and punish the thief for spending initiative on the CG field(s) and poison utilities.

The niche it shines in has significantly increased, however. Before it was soft denial of ressing and even softer point denial. Now it can really interrupt a lot of enemy skills.

Take for example the downed stealth ability for thief. CG will make interrupting that while preventing ally res possible. It may also serve as anti res gyro tactic.

As a momentum builder SB can truly shine.

Meta gets nerfed and people always will post how the sky is falling.

So you used a boon spamming build against a boon corruption build and expected to not have to pay any attention to your condition cleanse?

I feel like the tether duration and revealed duration should be reduced given the advantage this gives the DH in fighting classes with stealth

There was just a balance patch so the meta hasn’t settled yet for pvp in particular.

The daredevil elite specialization with HoT is highly recommended generally. There are some Core builds as well but the consensus is that Daredevil offers higher rewards than Core.

There is a thief forum guild active in game that can also provide assistance and build advice. Search the forums for the thread discussing it and apply. We’d be happy to help out.

Respectfully, you are mistaken.

Conditions, if all cleansed away, do no damage. No damage removes the few condition builds from viability and results in buffs to the application of conditions. Essentially, by buffing cleanse you increase the need for conditions to burst down their opponents before a cleanse can be activated.

What you really want is a nerf to cleanse and a corresponding nerf to condition application. Otherwise, you just end up with the same burst meta you dislike so much.

I try

/15charsprobablyshedalotoffur

I thought panic strike auto applied at 50% now with poison. Additional if potent poison is taken.

Or was that only on a power damage hit?

I’d love it if this was implemented on an account specific basis for you only :-p

Much love :-)

Ghost thief still exists in neutered form. With the buff to DA is it back to being just viable enough to kill newbies?

To be fair Rarnark said it is bad, not “how” it is bad.

He was surprisingly petulant for a top player. Not as reasonable as say Sind.

If you can use it around downed players it will do plenty to keep them off the downed though. And it makes point fighting much more defensible.

It may also prove deadly to those who try to panic heal and end up getting interrupted.

Note:

Spider Venom + cluster bomb + choking gas = 6 stacks of poison and pulsing daze on all four pulses. (Single target with no blocks/evades/invulns)

The buff on body shot previously was applied in pvp. This patch merely normalized it in all game modes.

My thought is that lotus in choking gas will be a new condition damage meta.

For generic cleanse. Specific cleanses just hit those conditions regardless of order.

Last in first out I believe.

A single choking gas can’t do what you are saying. More likely it would involve spider venom or other poison utility, possibly a trained steal (on a single target to be dazed) and (more likely) multiple choking gas fields.

You can cleanse to avoid the stun or use stability to avoid the daze.

Or you can target the thief before you res with some concentrated fire and force him to waste initiative defensively. Then he won’t have the initiative to put down the fields needed to stop a res.

To be fair with the right build it can be used as AoE stun interrupt on ressing downed enemies.

But, cleanse and other abilities do provide counter play to an extent that the buff will have less impact than people think. That doesn’t mean it won’t be meaningful, I plan to use it to AoE cleave downed bodies. It may also help as an opener on point fights.

People need to stop assuming conditions are easy to apply. Skull grinder still needs to hit to apply conditions for example.

Dodge, block, and blind will mitigate condition application.

There are a few good condition thieves I run into periodically. But usually I can out do them in team fights and out rotate them on the map.

With new changes I expect I’ll see a few more (but not too many just based on the power damage meta thief preference).

39 reward tracks will get you the clovers if you complete them in pvp or WvW.

Having also done the forge method, doing the method that also yields t6 is a good way to save money on the gift of fortune.

Good luck

I like the changes because they decreased some of the burst while also reducing automatic sustain. Now it takes more effort to spike and more effort to sustain which makes the game more interesting.

There are also more options for counter play with the pulsing stability change (which I would like to see extended to resistance as well). Overall, the patch was a good first (not only) step towards balanced gameplay.

People need to stop expecting 100% balance in a single patch. Nothing is ever perfect and there were a lot of positive changes this round.

Hard to get all shots to land against good players. Might be effective against some builds though in combination with basi venom or immobilize.

Lol, all these people quitting the game when sustain and damage was nerfed across the board. Something they promised to do months ago.

I can’t even. When people figure out where the meta settles I doubt things will be as dire as some people are claiming.

What suggestions were those Cynz?

I run SA in a non-meta P/D build. I’m not sure the “why” is about Rending Shade despite the timing coinciding.

That said it’s quite strong and can shut down people who rely too much on boons for their damage or defense. Very useful on condition builds to steal resistance and therefore reduce the uptime significantly.

Condition shortbow is now…let’s just say in limited testing I am pleased.

They said they wanted to remove the burst sigils while also reducing sustain.

Shortbow buffs look nice. AoE interrupt with enough poison stacks. Should synergize well with the DA poison buffs also.

The extra revealed won’t be terrible as long as you play around it. Mostly it’s only DH with tether skills that will be noticable.

DH got hit with major nerfs to sustain as well. I need to retool my builds now that Sigils have been changed in pvp.

Guilds add costs to joining to deter less experienced players. Usually they don’t “need” the gold. What guild gets by on 10 gold per applicant?

Many players have much more gold than this. Many will also only pay this fee if they know the guild and want to join. Scam implies that they aren’t being honest about giving you a trial. A trial can, however, be failed. Giving up your application fee isn’t unexpected if the trial doesn’t work out.

The more likely scam is a player pretending to represent a guild and having you mail them gold to “apply.”

“Deliver a flurry of melee attacks with your sniper rifle, inflict 20 stacks of confusion.

Hybrid Mace/Shield Rifle Warrior too just to get into the mood :p

With Deadeye coming I’m inspired to dust off a couple of Core builds and see what I can do. I ran acro in my build prior to HoT to prepare for that too.

In this case maybe I’ll run a D/D P/P build and play it like a sniper as much as possible. Hybrid damage too so it mixes offense types (I suspect rifle will be hybrid condi).

DD can’t be paired with Deadeye so the movement impairment immunity and general condition immunity evade builds will not be an issue.

Take core thief and then add rifle. Potentially good but will have to see what the spec gets and not speculate based on assumption it will get stuff it won’t.

HOPE, Predator and Incinerator are the three magitech themed weapons. All of them are worth making.

A sniper without stealth makes no sense. A sniper with a lot of stealth would be op.

So it will likely be a medium stealth weapon with (hopefully) a mix of condition damage and power damage (confusion?).

It will probably be a good rotational weapon (good opener and swap weapon) hopefully the line comes with some good projectile bonuses (maybe a range increase for both rifle and pistol?) such as unblockable (like on stealth attack).

A legendary should mean you spent some time in all game modes. Live with it. This is the price of an expensive trophy.

I’ve grinded out two legendaries and working on a third/fourth. Don’t think for a second a little pvp is too high a price to pay.

Teach new players then.

I taught a new thief/player about leap stealth finishers not more than an hour ago. See a problem solve a problem.

Well I’ve started the precursor collection for Predator. 30 spirit wood and 30 deld. FML.

At least I’ve got the gifts of mastery and fortune done. Now just to get the gift of Predator while grinding out this insane precursor.

Bronze is distinct from silver. Silver is distinct from gold. Gold is distinct from platinum.

I have fought players of all skill levels in pvp and WvW and I can tell the difference. And it isn’t an understanding of class balance that results in higher ranks at a certain point.

I mean, you can pretend that bronze (new) players and gold (experienced) players are the same when it comes to understanding class balance. But you would be wrong. Balance for the top 50%, not the top 5%.

I love the people who think you need to be top 0.5% to have an opinion.

Basically you can’t have an argument at that point and are just waiting for the truth to be delivered by the few and only elites.

Sure, some expertise is necessary, but let’s not be ridiculous.

If you can hit DH with Mace Crack that is worth a lot. Bonus points if you can hit them mid leap. It has a nice windup so just hit it and steal for increased odds of it connecting. Bonus you can get a second mace crack off for chain stun goodness.

DH may be able to reset a couple of times with heals and cooldown resets, but that reset takes so long you just need to be patient with your burst and push them after the block spam expires.

I also use the unblockable poison on shortbow to keep them on their toes. Fun fact, with the regular damage on first hit of the field you can transfer venoms to the DH as well, totally unblockable.

DH bow suffers from the same issue that all projectiles have. LoS. Use your mobility to stay outside of LoS and strike when you need to. Don’t forget you are the most mobile not just because you can travel long distances quickly.

I’d love to duel you a bit Papasmurf <3 Hit me up on a weekend and we may even be able to stream it with other people playing various classes.

I think he wants advice on beating them not how to beat thief as them :p

Lots of DH like to use their leap heal when they are out of blocks and stability. If you can save an interrupt that will cut them down quite a bit. I can write more on this later.

Zerkers normally aren’t a huge problem for me because I run condi and once resistance runs out (sooner with well timed boonstripping) I just need to chip away at their hp. My suggestions are generally to practice your kiting skills and if you use basi venom to use that to break their first block chain. The trick is to use stealth to reposition and keep them guessing where you are. On P/D shadow strike helps with keeping me out of melee range. If they run rifle then you need to line of sight and focus more on stealth because rifle is single target and you should be able to hit and run better.